Depression: How this Book may Help Your Patients

Jill Maschio's experience with depression provides an example of how an integrated approach to couneleing can be therapeutic. This book approaches the widespread devastation of depression by combining theories of cognitive, behavioral, gestalt, feminist, exitential, and humanistic psychology. Jill's experience with depression was helped most by learning critical thinking concepts and their application to stressors. Research has shown that a high percentage of adults do not fully integrate into the Piaget's Formal Operational stage. Jill believes that this was the cause of her depression and not due to biological or genetic factors.

This book teaches the educational skills that Jill learned and how to apply them to problem-solving, communication, perception, and coping. Jill believes that teaching critical thinking skills may help adults make the transition into the formal operational stage and aid in depression. The following will explain what critical thinking is.

Thinking and Critical Thinking: Jean Piaget defined thinking as an active process where, through perception, people mentally organize their world through transformation (dynamic) thinking (Piaget, 1961). All humans can think. Thinking is the cognitive ability to make observations and generalizations, have perceptions, form opinions, make assumptions, and draw conclusions. Humans do this repeatedly throughout the course of a day and without any conscious awareness of doing it. Yet, there are different ways of thinking. For instance, the term critical changes how the act of thinking is done.

The term critical thinking can be viewed as an expansion of Piaget’s definition of thinking. It couples the traditional meaning of thinking with the meaning of critical, which includes exercising careful judgment or judicious evaluation, having the inclination to criticize severely and unfavorably, and a being of state that experiences some quality, property, or phenomenon changes (Merriam-Webster, 2008). In this sense, critical thinking can mean the active process of thinking, but it additionally involves applying a standard of evaluation that is more scientific (or rigorous). Robert Ennis (1993) suggested that critical thinking is “reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do” (p. 180).

Background on Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is can be defined as “the active cognitive process of skillfully evaluating and judging ideas, data, or stimuli so that decisions can be made about what to believe or do or to restructure thinking.” Thinking changes even further when a person applies critical thinking to his or her own thoughts. Paul and Elder (2007) explained that “critical thinking is where the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it” (p. 2). To apply critical thinking to one’s own thoughts requires the process of choosing to bring a thought to the conscious and suspend the thought so that a series of standards and judgment for analysis can be deliberately made. This process would be required in order to dispute and challenge one’s dysfunctional thinking.

Critical thinking is essential not only for making both everyday and more complex decisions, but also for effective problem-solving and communicating. Some examples of how critical thinking skills enable more effective thinking include: learning to identify when claims in ads are factual or personal opinion; recognizing when there is a lack of information needed to make a conclusion about whether buying X product will really save the buyer money; understanding that because some political figure said is was so doesn’t makes it true; and because one bad experience dinning at ABC restaurant doesn’t mean that all future dining experiences at that restaurant will be bad.

Ennis (1993) gives a more clear idea of what critical thinking entails. He believed that certain characteristics are needed and a deliberate effort to reflect. The things needed are:

Paul and Elder (2007) explained that critical thinking is a disciplined art requiring questioning the parts of thinking. Paul and Elder also made a suggestion of what critical thinking looks:

Let’s see, what is the most fundamental issue here? From what point of view should I approach this problem? Does it make sense for me to assume this? What may I reasonably infer from these data? What is implied in this graph? What is the fundamental concept here? Is this information consistent with that information? What makes this question complex? How could I check for accuracy of these data? If this is so, what else is implied? Is this a credible source of information? And so forth. (p. 2)
           
Yet, Paul and Elder (2007) stated that students cannot become skilled in critical thinking without learning (first) the concepts and principles that underlie critical thinking and (second) applying them in a variety of forms of thinking…” (p. 7). The benefits of learning this skill are multifaceted. Critical thinking prevents the individual from relying solely on other thinking styles that can be more dysfunctional, such as relying on emotions or intuitive thinking (Maschio, 2006). Maschio explained that the skill of critical thinking helps brings about change because, by thinking critically, people can change how they see themselves, others, and the world. It gives people the chance to change their views and their personality, which are all factors at the heart of Alfred Adler’s Individual therapy (Stein, 2008). Habermas (1979, as cited in Burke 1988) believed that learning to think critically “frees people from institutional forces or environmental factors that prevent them from considering new directions and from gaining control of their lives and their world” (p. 2).

As you can see, the skills taught in this book may be just what your client is looking for. I proposed the idea that patients who have developed the skill of critical thinking may be more equipped with the ability to meet the challenges for therapies that facilitate patients with change or insight (e.g., Adlerian therapy, Cognitive therapy, Existential, Person-Centered therapy, Gestalt, REBT, Reality therapy, Feminist therapy, Postmodern approaches, and psychoanalysis). I suffered myself from depression and the skills and education presented in this book are arranged in an easy to follow order according to how I successfully overcame it. I am currently in a psychology Ph.D program, but I wrote the book prior to the program and in a manner where people with depression can relate to the concepts. Therefore, counselors can walk their patients through this book, which may help patients feel that they are being heard and being understood.

Not only is this book a great place to begin overcoming depression, there are other benefits as well.

To explain the benefits this book can have, let me briefly discuss neurogenesis. Neurogenesis looks like a big scary word. It simply is the brain's ability to take new experiences and form new neurons that lead to new brain growth and brain connections.

Neurons are the brain's transportation of communication. You're probably asking why this matters. Well, according to some studies, the lack of neurogenesis in the brain is now believed to be associated with depression. Stress may be one cause for the death of neurons and inhibit neurogenesis. The increase of neurogenesis might help with recovery of depression. One way to help increase neurogenesis is through education because learning increases more connections between brain cells. Much like the rain and sun are to grass, education is to the brain.

For more information on this topic, I recommend the following articles.

A Controversial New Theory Links Depression to the Inability to Grow New Brain Cells. (2004) Forbes Magazine. Vol. 173, Issue 2.

Christian Mirescu, Jennifer D. Peters and Elizabeth Gould. (August 2004).
Early Life Experiences Alters Response of Adult Neurogenesis to Stress.
Nature Neuroscience. Vol. 7.

Glaser, Danya. (2000). Environmental Influences on Brain Development.
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Gage. Fred H. (2003). Repair Yourself. How Do You Fix a Broken Brain.
Scientific American, Inc.

Curtis, Wayne. (2007). Sound Body, Sound Mind. Who Knew? Exercising
Strengthens Your Muscles and Your Brain. Continental

"I found this book to be valuable and believe it can be very helpful to those who are dealing with depression as well as professionals who treat people with depression. I feel people dealing with mild to moderate depression can read this on their own and do the exercises for their growth and benefit. I believe professionals can use this book as the textbook to start and facilitate a psycho-educational group on depression. I feel people dealing with deeper, and perhaps endogenous depression, would be served to use the book as an adjunct to seeing a psychotherapist."
 
 Bob Edelstein, LMFT, MFT

“I think the book is easy to read, informative, and comprehensive. I t seems like a good common sense approach that most people can relate with and a useful book for them to manage the experience of feeling depressed. I liked the ‘workbook’ aspect of it, and I think this is a useful readable book.”

Paul Murray, Ph.D

Jill Maschio's book, When Your Mind is Clear, the Sun Shines All the Time: A Guidebook for Overcoming Depression takes readers on a personal journey into the murky waters of depression. Written by a survivor afflicted with deep depression for many years, the author shares a candid story about her personal battle with depression. She shows how she came to understand it, face it, and overcome it. Maschio explains that the key to overcoming depression is "critical thinking." She demonstrates that overcoming depression involves taking the time to challenge your feelings and thoughts instead of reacting to them.

The author delivers key tools to becoming a successful critical thinker allowing one to develop positive decision-making abilities. By analyzing your thought processes during difficult times and recognizing flawed thinking that can lead to misinterpreting events, she shares how you can head off the path to depression. Readers learn to challenge many influences, internal and external, and develop the ability to question their validity by looking at them from other points of view before jumping to conclusions.

With constant reflections of her own inner struggle throughout the book, Maschio shows readers how to these skills to constant negative thinking. She delivers an understanding of self-esteem, a logical look where self-esteem originates, the effects of low self-esteem, and how to master the art of raising it by employing critical thinking.

Jill Maschio's guide to overcoming depression stands out from many self-help books because it is told from the perspective of a survivor. It delivers hope to those believing life is hopeless. With over 57 million people in the US suffering from depression, the author demonstrates that we all have it in us to "walk through fear" to break free from the constant cycle of negative thoughts and achieve self-discovery.

Tracy Roberts, Write Field Services